US envoy to Russia to quit

Moscow, Feb. 4 (AP): US ambassador Michael McFaul, the architect of President Barack Obama’s effort to reset relations with Russia, announced today that he is stepping down after two years in Moscow.

McFaul, a Stanford University professor who signed on as an unpaid adviser to Obama during his first presidential campaign, moved with him to Washington and served for three years on the National Security Council before taking up his first diplomatic post as ambassador to Russia.

McFaul said he was leaving after the Sochi Winter Olympics to rejoin his family in California. The ambassador announced his departure in a blog post in English and Russian titled, “It’s time, my friend, it’s time”, a line by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.